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Some people are reporting a mysterious sighting of a string of lights in
Valley skies last week.
A NewsChannel 3 photographer spotted them, turned on his camera and
captured on film the so-called "Estrella lights."
"We watched them for about 2-1/2 hours," said Sheila Jones-Vega, who
said the lights moved back and forth.
She and her husband, Frank, said they could hardly believe their eyes
while on a drive to the Estrella Mountains where they're building a home.
The Goodyear couple considered the possibility that pilots from nearby
Luke Air Force Base were dropping flares.
"I would think a flare would kind of burn and then fizzle out. These
things turned back on," she said.
Jones-Vega was right about the flare activity, says Jim Dilettoso, a
professional film analyst. But his analysis came with a word of caution.
"But I don't jump to conclusions. I don't hold a vial of lab blood up to
the window and say, 'Well looks OK to me.' You know, there's testing
that has to be done, extract the data, compare it to normals. Well now,
I have found that it is not flares that I am familiar with in my
database," he said.
A spokeswoman at Luke Air Force Base said U.S. pilots there drop flares
almost every night of the week, but said the Estrella lights did not
originate from the base.
After their impressive view June 14, Jones-Vega and her husband said
they spent the next night watching the skies from their second-story
bedroom window. They said they saw the fighter jets and the Estrella
lights not only on the 15th, but again this week.
"We saw jets come up from the airport, numerous jets come up, and it
seemed as though the jets would approach the lights. The lights would
turn off," she said. "It wasn't as though the jet was dropping something
and the light turned on. The lights were already there and the jets came
up near them and the lights turned off. I'm a little embarrassed that
people will think I'm crazy, but I know what I saw."
Watching the lights blink out one by one, the couple is pretty sure
they'll be back.
The couple said they will be watching and wondering if the truth is out
there. After all, their new home is out there too.
"Like I said, I don't want to be living on a landing pad out there for
something," she said.
Many people are comparing the Estrella sighting to the Phoenix lights of
1997. Dilettoso said there are similarities but also significant
differences.
Luke Air Force Base said pilots reported nothing unusual over the past
two weeks. And there were no other reports of other military or private
organizations admitting to flying in that area.
Securitas